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Thursday, 30 June 2016

We got a day of sunshine before the clouds and the rain came back. We are having a horrible summer here in the UK, very grey and miserable! Hopefully this means we will get some nice weather through September (and maybe August, but I doubt July with the look of all these clouds). Even the white butterflies are elusive this year - I have not seen any caterpillars on my cabbages yet - just slug damage on everything!

Anyway, here is my crafting creation I want to share with you today. It is a Christmas card, with a little bit of a twist :)

I took an A5 card blank in pastel yellow (actually slightly smaller than A5) and measured 6cm in from each side. I then cut through both layers of card to 6cm down at this point. Scoring along the bottom of the two cut lines to join them up allows this centre piece to be folded inside the card, so there is now a trough between two peaks. I useded two different foiled designer papers that I got free with a magazine at Christmas time, to cover the card front. The bottom paper has also been used on the back of the trough section. I then covered the join with some 'Let it snow' ribbon and added a sentiment to the bottom using peel-offs. I printed out the Mistletoe Christmas Mice from Disdigistamps, and coloured then using Promarkers. I attached this image to the inner panel of the card using 3D foam pads. I stuck two peel-offs to silver glitter card and cut them out, colouring the holly with Promarkers, before adhering to the card with foam pads.

I would like to enter this Christmas Card into the following challenges:

So many of you have asked about my little Dragonfly. Unfortunately he passed away - it would appear that he had been without food for too long, and although he seemed really healthy and alert it was actually his last attempt to get food, but when he ate you could see the area swell slightly, but his digestive system had practically shut down and it wouldn't move through his body. The bottom part of the body was see through!! but I do have a couple more photos to share with you:

I also thought you might like to see some of the bits I have been growing:

Cabbage patch - covered to protect from pigeons!

Flower bed

Poppy

Dog Rose

Having a good old ramble!!

And finally a new audiobook review for you guys:

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

Catherine, as the daughter of a country clergyman, is very
excited when her neighbours invite her to visit Bath with them. Bath is very
exciting as it is full of happenings and social gatherings, however it is
disconcerting for Catherine as neither she nor Mrs Allen knows any of the
socialites. Therefore it is a relief when the Thorpe’s turn up, old friends of
the Allen’s and Catherine makes a close friend. She also meets the Tilney’s,
who the Thorpe’s are jealous of, which causes some friction between the
friends. However, her life brightens much more when she is invited to visit
their family home, Northanger Abbey.

This is quite a good story, but I dislike the way Jane
Austen writes and explains why she is writing things a certain way when the
citizenship of the time may not like it. It tends to detract from the story
somewhat, and makes a large gap between what the characters are doing. Also, I
find it difficult to believe that anybody could be quite as naïve as Catherine
supposedly is.

Monday, 27 June 2016

It has been a little while since I last posted - I was visiting my mum over the weekend and went out on Friday night for a bat walk, then it was national switched off day yesterday, so here I am today with a new creation to share with you all!

I made a square card blank out of plain white card and added this lovely paper - received from one of the lovely ladies in the ATC swap group I exchange with - for the patterned front. I took a handmade piece of lilac paper, which was already square, and cut a piece of white card slightly smaller than this. I stamped two swallows, from hobbycraft, in pink ink and made a mask (I realised after I put the stamp away I should have made two). I then masked the birds as required and stamped a leaf border, from a Clearly Besotted stamp set, using Boofle ink. I also made a mask for these leaves, before stamping the rose from the same stamp set into the centre. I layered the two squares together and then added to the card front. To finish I used a sentiment from a CD-Rom that came free a few years ago with Quick Cards magazine, which was the same colours as the rest of the card.

I have an introduction for you today as promised. Meet Lanstrum, my little (or actually rather large) Western Hognose:

I have had her for almost 10years now, and she is still as awkward as ever. She does not bit, as in order to bite she actually has to dislocate her jaw, however she is a grumpy cow and hisses and head butts quite regularly. Yet when she is out and about meeting new people (when we actually have decent weather) she loves the attention and anybody can hold her without any grumbling at all! She will even let people prod her nose - which is quite solid and hog-like, hence the name. She has currently decided that she does not want to eat the mice I have got for her - even though she is obviously hungry!! I think the weather is confusing her a little and making her extra grumpy.

I also have some pictures of my garden:

Self sown poppy - it is red/pink

These are some summer bulbs, but I cannot remember what they are - an iris I think

Herb Bed

White Snapdragon

Perennial Geranium

And here is the audio book review you have been waiting for:

The Wedding by Danielle Steel

Allegra is the lawyer of some very important people who has
a habit of falling hard for men who are unwilling to commit. She is the
daughter of two famous producers and represents some even more famous people,
which means her job is very demanding a lot of the time. Her life changes, for
better or worse, when she goes to New York for a client, and meets the man she
will marry. However life throws many things in their path – pregnancies with
major implications, distress for Allegra’s mother, and meeting the
mother-in-law, to name but a few. I found this a very interesting book with
highs and lows. Not very realistic for most people but the exaggeration is just
right! It is not as captivating as a crime novel, but still very good.

Wednesday, 22 June 2016

Sorry my post is so late this time round! Unfortunately I have been nursing a dragonfly after wading into my pond at the allotment to rescue him from off a flower. I am still not sure he will survive but he has a better chance now than he did. I will see how he is in the morning. His wings were stuck together with pond weed, where he obviously got them caught as he emerged and so they stuck where the weed was as he dried out, hence I am not sure if he will ever be able to fly, but I will see in the morning. At the momet I have left him sleeping on a blade of grass growing on my windowsill in the living room (I know, why am I growing grass, but I am not, it is in with my chilli and so I have left it to seed for my birds and mice lol). I did manage to get him to eat a fly by holding his body and putting the fly into his mouth!! Very interesting - I got the idea from youtube when he refused to eat it himself.

He is currently sleeping with his front legs held over his eyes! I have never seen a dragonfly sleeping before but it makes sense they have to cover their eyes as they have no eyelids lol. It looks very cute though.

Anyway, onto the reason I am posting this blog today. We have a new challenge over at Creative Moments - Anything Goes with a twist of Summer! Please check the blog for details of sponsors, we have four again this time. I am using Ginarth the Generous from Creative Bug.

There are two pictures so that you can see both the lovely colours, and the shimmer on the card. As the twist this time is summer, I decided it was a good opportunity to use one of my new card blanks. I then die-cut a fancy square from white card, and spritzed with a mix of pink and orange mica powders mixed in water. The image was cut into a tag shape and coloured using mica powders and water on a paintbrush. A ribbon was added to the tag. Wooden leaves, a sun and a couple of hearts were also painted with the mica powder/water mix. A foam dragonfly and a layered paper flower finish the card off. I would have preferred to use flowers instead of leaves, but unfortunately I do not have any wooden flowers!

Thank you for looking and I am sorry the extras I promised are not here, I will pop them on later - probably either Friday or Saturday now. So that will be the audio book review and a new introduction to my pets.

Monday, 20 June 2016

I got absolutely soaked through on my way back to my car after work this evening. I drive 1hr20mins minimum to get home and my trousers were still wet when I got back, even after having the air blower trained on them the whole journey! At least it was warm and wet though with very little wind - small benefits eh? What a lovely way to spend the longest day of the year - shouldn't it be lovely and sunny?

I would have loved to have been down at Stonehenge to watch the sun rise this year, but again have been unable to do this. One year I will get there - I even had an invite this year, but couldn't get the time off work :(

I have no crafting accompishments to share with you today as I have been working on my allotment and in my garden, supposedly. I think I actually spent more time taking photographs than anything else, but there was plenty to look at. I am also busy creating my next card for the Creative Moments challenge blog, where I am on the Design Team. Do pop by on Wednesday to see our inspiration and join us in our challenge fun.

So here are some pictures to keep you amused. Firstly I thought you might be interested in my garlic crop - planted last year and then lost once the leaves had died back and had to wait for it to grow through again this year - it does mean that it has to be used quickly for any string flavour, and they are individual cloves. Some nice big ones there though!

Next I have a short video, and a picture for those who may not be able to watch the video, of a little guy with a large shell having fun with the petals that have fallen off my poppies. I went out into the garden to do something, can't remember what now, and saw him with a bit of bright orange sticking out of him mouth and just had to run and get the camera. This large petal does not quite capture the amusing first sight I had of him, but it is quite cute nevertheless.

Here are some pictures from down the plot - first is a row of potatoes (hiding among the grass and creeping buttercup):

Then we have a view of the pond:

A close up of some Bramble flower buds because I thought they were pretty:

And a random purple spike that the bees seem to love:

And finally, I found this little guy crawling around my smaller pond at the other allotment:

Any ideas what he is????

I do have a picture or two from the following day, but I am going to keep

you

in

suspense

a little

longer

lol

Here he is in all his glory!! I am pretty sure he is a Southern Hawker Dragonfly - not that you would have guessed from the nymph.

This is the skin he left behind in the boot of my car:

Please pop back on Wednesday to see my DT creation, more pictures from this weekend, a new audio book review and another intriduction to one of my pets - this time there are no feathers or fur!!